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- Untitled
- 2016
- acrylic paint, glass and ceramic beads, pencil and other materials on cotton bed-sheet
- 220 × 135 cm
Denisa Lehocká uses bedsheets as surfaces for her larger-format "paintings". Bedsheets are commonly thought of as neutral, mundane, the most “normal” things. On the other hand, she is entirely aware of their broad range of strong cultural connotations of everydayness, domesticity, sleep, relaxation, dreaming, evening and night, and sex. The bedsheet is a protective tissue of sorts for the bed that has direct, carnal contact with the human body. Its white is a color of hygiene, order, and peace—and it is something in which the body leaves its traces. In Lehocká’s works, such stains take the shape of Rorschachian amoebas of association or imagination or even an opulent carrot with extended roots. They are meditations on textile handicrafts (painting, drawing, embroidery, etc.). This hand-madeness relates to quilting traditions as well as flags of emancipatory empowerment. B.O.